Thanks for reading today and all the comments. I’m going to leave you with a summary of the day’s main developments:

Jeremy Corbyn has dismissed as a “ridiculous smear” a story in the Sun alleging that he briefed a Czechoslovakian communist spy during the cold war. A spokesman for the Labour leader said he met a Czechoslovakian diplomat in the 1980s but “neither had nor offered any privileged information”.

The defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, said Corbyn could not be trusted. “That he met foreign spies is a betrayal of this country,” Williamson told the Evening Standard. A spokesman for Corbyn criticised Williamson for giving credence to the “entirely false” allegations.

Williamson was also in the news for accusing the Russian government of “undermining democracy” with a cyber-attack that targeted Ukraine and spread across Europe last year.

The Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson, has mounted a strong defence of UK aid spending following a visit to Afghanistan. Some Conservatives, including Jacob Rees-Mogg, are putting pressure on prime minister Theresa May to cut the commitment to spend 0.7% of national income on foreign aid.

The Home Office’s roll out of a simple phone app to register EU citizens in the UK, replacing the 85-page application pack, has been delayed because of the prime minister’s warning that they will have no automatic right to remain if they come to the UK after 29 March 2019.

Home Office Brexit app for EU citizens put in doubt

The defence secretary, Gavin Williamson has become the first member of the cabinet to respond to the Sun’s front page alleging that Jeremy Corbyn briefed a communist spy, the Evening Standard reports.

Williamson, at a Nato meeting in Brussels, is quoted as saying it is proof that the Labour leader cannot be trusted:

Jeremy Corbyn has never had Britain’s interests at heart. Time and time again he has sided with those who want to destroy everything that is great about this country, whether it is sympathising with terrorists, backing rogue regimes, or cosying up to those who want to inflict pain and misery on the British people.

That he met foreign spies is a betrayal of this country. He cannot be trusted.

A spokesman for Corbyn is quoted as responding:

Gavin Williamson should focus on his job and not give credence to entirely false and ridiculous smears, which as we know from Darren Osborne [jailed for life for the attack on Muslims in Finsbury Park], can have a potentially deadly effect ...

Jeremy has consistently made the correct calls in the interests of security and peace, including on the Libyan intervention and his opposition to the disastrous Iraq war that has caused catastrophe in the region and made us less safe at home.

The Ulster Newsletter is one of the oldest newspapers in the world and for centuries has been the daily voice of unionism in Ireland. Back in 1998 it took a leap of faith in backing David Trimble, the then Ulster Unionist leader, in support of the Good Friday agreement. Its editor at the time Geoff Martin came under sustained criticism from agreement-sceptic unionists for backing the Belfast Agreement and Trimble; there were even calls for a boycott of the paper from some DUP quarters.

So it is a measure of the groundswell unionist opposition to Sinn Fein’s core demand for an Irish Language Act in Northern Ireland (the issue on which the talks foundered) that the Newsletter published a front page editorial this morning supporting Arlene Foster’s decision to pull the plug on the current negotiations.

“A grim moment, yes, but also a very necessary one” thundered the page one editorial. The paper that supported the peace agreement almost 20 years ago praised Foster and the DUP for “having brought the process to halt in blackmail over a language”.

There were also some of the harshest words written of late in the pro-unionist press against the Irish government, almost in the same language we used to hear during the Troubles.

While its circulation over the last few years has plummeted, the Newsletter still has its finger on the collective unionist pulse and the message it is transmitting is that tribal trenches are being dug again and the chances of compromise at this moment at least are as remote as survival in a shell-shattered no man’s land.

My colleague, Polly Toynbee, writes that, in his speech yesterday, Boris Johnson failed in his purported aim to unite the two sides of the Brexit debate.

The man who did most to break the country in two could, possibly, have been the man to try to heal those wounds – if he were serious, politically adept and cleverer than he is. But peace and compromise are not in his nature. What he brought was not an olive branch for the 48% but the hardest of Brexits, escaping from all the burdensome EU regulations we are “lashed” to. Naturally none were spelled out, since naming them would reveal precisely what his wing of his party has in mind – and that would look mighty brutal, from working rights, to the environment and food and product safety.

But suppose instead he had acknowledged why the closeness of the referendum result obliges his party to offer the softest of Brexits to bind up the national rift, he could have proved himself a worthy contender. Instead with his weary old tropes, he missed his moment to surprise.

Boris Johnson could’ve healed the national rift, but he thought only of himself | Polly Toynbee

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Boris Johnson gestures as he delivers his ‘Road to Brexit, a United Kingdom’ speech in London yesterday. Photograph: Simon Dawson / POOL/EPA

The EU has not abandoned the idea of suspending British access to parts of the single market, if the government flouts the rules of a Brexit transition, EU diplomats have told the Guardian.

A “punishment clause” that would allow the EU to suspend some single market benefits, such as free movement of goods, sparked a row between David Davis and Michel Barnier last week. The Brexit secretary accused Brussels of discourteous behaviour, while the EU’s chief negotiator said he was surprised by the uproar.

In a controversial footnote appended to a draft legal text, the EU said it should be allowed to suspend UK access to the single market during a transition.

European judges take 15 months on average to reach a verdict on cases of EU law-breaking, which has prompted worries the UK might be tempted to ignore the rules during the 21-month transition.

While the footnote has been dropped, the idea has not gone away and will be covered in a different chapter of the Brexit treaty dedicated to dispute-management.EU diplomats had objected to the last-minute insertion of the footnote by Barnier’s team. The language was described as aggressive, but sources denied reports that it had been watered down.

One diplomat told the Guardian the EU had not given up the idea of suspending single market access during the transition.

In the end what instrument does the EU have to make the UK pay or change if they are infringing something, because they are diverging from the acquis [EU law]

A second said it was likely the EU would insert “similar language into our enforcement text” adding that small businesses “can’t sit around and wait for lengthy legal procedures”, especially when Britain’s future ties with the EU remained unclear.

The next text, however, is likely to spell out a fast-track process for investigating rule-breaking based on the EU’s regular infringement procedures, where the UK has the right of reply. The draft has yet to be agreed by diplomats.

The defence secretary, Gavin Williamson has has accused the Russian government of “undermining democracy” with a cyber-attack that targeted Ukraine and spread across Europe last year.

He took the unusual step of publicly accusing Moscow of theNotPetya ransomware attack in June, which primarily targeted the Ukrainian financial, energy and government sectors.

Williamson said:

We have entered a new era of warfare, witnessing a destructive and deadly mix of conventional military might and malicious cyber-attacks.

Russia is ripping up the rulebook by undermining democracy, wrecking livelihoods by targeting critical infrastructure and weaponising information ... We must be primed and ready to tackle these stark and intensifying threats.

UK blames Russia for NotPetya cyber-attack last year

In other news, the Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson, has mounted a strong defence of UK aid spending following a visit to Afghanistan.

Davidson spent four days in Kabul this week with the Dumfriesshire-based Halo Trust, famously championed by Princess Diana and now the world’s largest humanitarian mine clearance operation.

She said:

With so much attention on the work of NGOs this week for all the wrong reasons, it has been a privilege to come to Afghanistan and see this life-changing work in one of the most difficult regions on earth.

This is the real story of what aid money can achieve. It is changing lives, and the world, for the better.

Her comments come as the Oxfam sexual misconduct scandal has prompted some Conservatives, including Jacob Rees-Mogg, to put pressure on prime minister Theresa May to cut the commitment to spend 0.7% of national income on foreign aid.

Describing the Halo Trust as “one of the great Scottish success stories”, Davidson insisted:

The UK government has recognised the importance of this work and how vital it is in helping some of the poorest and most unstable countries in the world to develop and become safer, more prosperous places. This means they can recover to the point where they no longer need help from the international community.

James Cowan of the Halo Trust said:

Not many politicians get to visit Afghanistan and it takes a certain sort to face its dangers only a few days after some major attacks. Ruth saw for herself the work of the 3,500 HALO staff who work across the country. She also witnessed the amazing contribution that UK DFID is making to clearing the country of landmines. DFID’s support is saving lives and creating livelihoods.

Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson being given training on how to find, excavate and remove landmines by staff of the Halo Trust charity during her visit to Kabul. Photograph: Halo Trust/PA

The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has rubbished the Sun’s front page “Corbyn and the Commie Spy” (see below), which accuses him of having met a communist spy at the height of the cold war and having warned the Czechoslovakian spy of a clampdown by British intelligence.

Corbyn’s spokesman said:

The claim that he was an agent, asset or informer for any intelligence agency is entirely false and a ridiculous smear.

The story, based on “secret files”, alleges “he [Corbyn] passed on material about the arrest of an East German and was allegedly put on a list of Czechoslovakian state security team’s agents and sources”.

Like other MPs, Jeremy has met diplomats from many countries. In the 1980s he met a Czech diplomat, who did not go by the name of Jan Dymic [the name quoted by the Sun], for a cup of tea in the House of Commons.

Jeremy neither had nor offered any privileged information to this or any other diplomat.

During the Cold War, intelligence officers notoriously claimed to superiors to have recruited people they had merely met. The existence of these bogus claims does not make them in any way true.

Some of the information supposedly held in the secret files is not exactly earth-shattering.

For instance, it quotes the files as describing Corbyn as “negative towards USA, as well as the current politics of the Conservative government.”

Corbyn’s antipathy towards the UK and US governments at a time when Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were their respective leaders will surprise no-one.

The Sun front page is the latest in a series of allegations thrown at Corbyn since he became Labour leader, which intensified during last year’s general election campaign. Remember this?